


To Love Thine Enemy

by PhoenixFire_3120



Category: Renegades - Marissa Meyer
Genre: Alternate Universe, Assassination attempts, Fluff and Angst, Politics, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2019-10-27 02:54:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17758418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixFire_3120/pseuds/PhoenixFire_3120
Summary: If Ace really died during the Battle of Gatlan, If Honey never found her in the Tunnels, what would Nova have become? Alone, afraid, but free to make her own choices, decide her own ideas about the Renegades and the Anarchists.Having fought every day for her survival Nova has no interest in any remnants of war between the Renegades and Anarchists. One murdered her Uncle and would probably want her locked up just for the name Artino and the other left her for dead, not caring for some stray grieving child Ace had brought home.Running into a Renegade on a roof isn't her ideal evening but he seems - different. He cares, about everything but her name.As Adrian begins to experiment with his powers things go horribly wrong, he's angry, lashes out, and now a man is seriously injured. His parents would never understand, but Nova does.They might just want each other but another war is being dragged out of a now peaceful city, and whether they like it or not they're involved. It's not just their lives at stake, it's their livelihoods.She just wanted to be left alone.He just wanted to be a hero.Will either get what they want?





	1. The Girl on the Roof

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, so I realised there weren't all that many Renegade Fanfics out there and I've just read and become OBSESSED with this book (haven't read Archenemies yet) so I thought I'd throw this in here. As you all know that twist at the end hits like a ton of bricks, up until then I was convinced that she was going to change her mind and end up joining the Renegades but I think that if Ace has spent 12 years influencing and manipulating her into becoming a sort of personal assassin/ warrior for his cause then there is no way this is going to end happily. And then I began to wonder about if she hadn't had that upbringing. I've got most of this planned out, still not sure of the ending though so don't know how this will go.  
> This is kind of a short introduction.  
> Let me know!

There was a girl on the roof.

  
There was a girl on the roof, and she was eating ice-cream.

  
It was three O’clock in the morning and there was a girl on the roof eating ice-cream.

* * *

 

Adrian ran this thought through his brain several times and it made even less sense with every moment.

“You're staring at me.” The girl’s eyes narrowed, annoyed at the interruption to her night. “It's rude.” She clarified when he made no move to speak and instead just stared at her like an idiot. He shook himself out of it and cleared his throat.

“Um, yes. Sorry.” His face burned. It was perfectly logical to stare at someone doing something so strange, it definitely wasn’t because she was pretty. At all. Though he supposed, if he thought about it, which he hadn’t, then she was. The girl was a tiny thing, dark hair spilled loose around her darker clothes. If she had been anywhere but smack bang in the centre of the roof he may not have seen her at all. “So, Why are you on a roof in the middle of the night?”

She raised an eyebrow, “Pot. Kettle” she sounded out her words slowly, and he was feeling like an idiot again. But two could play at that game.

“ _I’m_ on patrol.” He gestured to his designated superhero uniform, her eyes followed his hands. “I’m a renegade.” Despite his attempt to flip this back on her, the look she returned him made him question whether it was his excuse for being up here which was the stranger of the two.  
Get it together Adrian, she’s eating an ice-cream for goodness sake, he definitely had more reason to be up here than she did. “Why _are_ you up here?” he tried again,

“Bored.” She took a mouthful of vanilla and shrugged, not to be dismissed so easily he decided to try a different tactic with her. His mouth lilting into an easy smile.

“You know-“ He smirked, “I am supposed to be reporting suspicious characters.”  
Her entire expression shifted in an instant. Freezing. Eyes wide. Afraid.

“I’m not doing anything wro-“

“Hey, hey, I was kidding.” Gone was the taunting confident girl, her foot shifted backwards, her eyes darting to where he knew the fire escape lay. He raised his hands in a placating gesture “I was just teasing, I’m sorry.” Sometimes he forgot that not everyone saw the Renegades as he did. Not as heroes changing the world, but as authoritarian dictators, arresting those who stepped out of line. His heart sank.

“I was stargazing.” He glanced back at her, but she was staring at the sky, she haphazardly waved the cone in an arc over her head. He started at the answer, surprised that shed even answered at all. “My father taught me all the constellations when I was young, coming out here at night makes me feel less- alone.” She sighed the final word, still staring at the sky with so much sadness in her eyes, in her voice. He silently wondered if her father were dead, but knowing the answer he instead tilted his head toward her and asked;

“Which one is that?”


	2. The Children of Heroes and Villains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long, I went to Spain, read ArchEnemies (if anyone wants to rant about that heartbreaking ending your welcome to message, it KILLED me), decided to change my entire plot for this fic because of a vague comment that got me determined I was going to give our darlings a happy ending somehow. Why I do this to myself I do not know, but I've written a fic before on a different site where I gave the main character their happy ending and then almost immediately shot them in the head. My readers were furious, understandably. I swear I'm going to be nice to these two... mostly. Let me know what you think, I know the plot is a bit of a slow build at the moment, I'm hoping to increase that in the next couple of chapters.   
> Is it just me getting a bit of a Sleeping Beauty vibe from these books? Marrissa usually does retellings so maybe that's why but with Nova's powers and the power increasing helmet and her dream of the whole city taken over with wildlife and vines I'm just waiting for her to turn into a futuristic supervillain version of Maleficent... Would that make Adrian the Prince or Sleeping Beauty? Oh if only I didn't already have a dozen fics I want to write. I wouldn't know what to do with it though :/ If anyone else does though your welcome to steal the idea and make it much better! just send me a link so I can read it!! :)
> 
> Have fun!

The sound of gravel crunched behind her, a faint smile on her lips Nova feigned an annoyed sigh, “Why do you keep turning up and bothering me?” His hand lightly brushed against her shoulder,

 

“Why do you keep turning up places I can easily find you? In the 2 weeks, I’ve known you you’ve already established yourself as the single most paranoid person I’ve ever met, so I’m not really believing the whole ‘I just happened upon her several times a week’ thing.”

The corner of her mouth tugged upwards involuntarily, glancing at him as he sat down beside her.

 

“Maybe I like your company.” she teased

 

“I get the feeling you don’t get a lot of that.”

 

“I get the feeling neither do you. – outside of the Renegades”, she amended

 

“I do- well okay I don’t see much of Danna or Ruby outside of work, Oscar a little more but everyone is always so busy you know.” He frowned slightly, Adrian had talked about his team a few times since they met, enough that she was familiar with their names, he may see them little outside of work but they were clearly close, Nova couldn’t help the bitter tang of envy, of his friends, his family;

 

“What about your parents?”

 

“Nobody’s busier than them” he cracked a sad smile “Simon tries to enforce a whole eating together at breakfast every day and at least two dinners a week routine but it never sticks.”

 

“I’m sorry” She murmured, picturing her own family sat around a breakfast table, Evie smearing food across her highchair, her father trying to wrangle her into eating it, her mother chewing on dry toast. She shook the memory from her mind.

 

“Don’t be, I’m not sad about it, I get it, you know. It can get a little lonely sometimes, but I have it way better than Max.” he laughed,

 

“Max?” this was a name she hadn’t heard before.

 

“My little brother, he’s…” he hesitates, “he’s stuck in quarantine for the rest of his life.” He turned his face away from her but she saw the pain, she wondered why she hadn’t heard him mention a brother before.

 

“Is he sick?”

 

“No… it's complicated.” He frowns then eager to change the conversation “what about your family?” She looked down,

 

“they’re dead.” She whispers,

 

“all of them?”

 

“yeah. Just me.”

 

“Oh.” The word came out as a whisper, he reached toward her hand then hesitated, eventually pulling away. “Well, what about the people looking after you? Are you adopted like me or fostered or what?”

A long silence stretched out between them, Nova swallowed, dreading how this conversation was going, the pity in his eyes, the danger of his next questions, and her answers.

 

“There isn’t anyone is there?” Even whilst staring at the floor she could see the sympathy, pity, in his face.

 

“no.”

 

“how long’s that been going on?”

 

“since I was 6.” He recoiled quickly, gaping at her before he exploded into questions

 

“What?! You’ve been looking after yourself since you were six?? On the streets? Why? God Nova, there’s tons of places you could’ve-”

 

“No, I couldn’t.” She snapped, “You have no idea what it’s like, there’s no way anyone would- after what happened. At the very mention of my name, people either run away in fear of their lives or try and kill me. I’ve had people actually try to KILL me because of the people I’m related to, it doesn’t even matter who they were only what they did, its always going to be like that.”

 

“It can’t be that bad, who were they? Your parents?” It dawned on her that she was ranting, information she had never given anyone, to a virtual stranger, to an _Everheart._ But she couldn’t stop herself, couldn’t stop her hands from shaking, or the crack in her voice. She shook her head,

 

“My parents were inventors, they were just trying to get by, and raise a family, that’s all, oh but the things my father could build. They changed the world.” For a moment the world was calm again, her voice softened with the memory of her father, a moment and the anger returned. “But they killed him for it, and my mother, my sister. It was my uncle who- I shouldn’t even be talking to you, this is stupid. Your so easy to talk to I forget myself. Stupid. Stupid. You complained about my paranoia earlier, but it’s kept me alive.”  She ran a hand through her hair trying to regain composure, he reached for her other one and this time he took it, squeezing hard.

 

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, you don’t have to tell me. I don’t think you can really judge people on their family though, I hope not, I don’t think I could ever live up to mine.”

 

“You're trying to live up to the worlds heroes.” She sneered as she said it “I’m trying not to live up to a mass murderer.” She snapped, then she closed her eyes, she’d gone too far, he would figure it out, even if he didn’t- something deep in her chest surged, a longing for someone to know her, understand. Her throat closed as she chocked on the words, she both longed and dreaded to say. “My Uncle was Ace Anarchy. I’m Nova Artino.” She went very quiet “He was just Uncle Alec to me, he brought me cuddly toys and would play music for me when I couldn’t sleep. He wasn’t a monster. He was just my Uncle.” Tears dropped from her eyes and she braced herself for the shouting or threating or- something tightened around her hand. She realised Adrian's hand was still holding hers, squeezing tighter now, she glanced up and he gave her a tight silent smile. His other hand reached up and she flinched as it grazed gently across her cheek capturing a tear. The tightness in her chest gave way to a tsunami of grief and loneliness, and this new gentleness it ran from. It felt like the world faded out for a moment and when it came to, her head was in her hands heaving with sobs and Adrian’s arms were around her, his forehead pressed against her temple.


	3. Elemental Design

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is just from Adrian's POV, but I wanted a cute look into the Everheart/Westwood family because they're adorable. Sorry, it took a while, I've had writer's block. I do NOT recommend anyone change the entire premise of their story two chapters in (even if it will make it better) :P Anyway, this chapter is a bit slow, I think the whole story is going to be a bit of a slow build for a while as I want to fully establish Nova and Adrian relationship before anything happens so the characters can be more emotionally invested with what's going on if that makes sense  
> Let me know what you think x

Adrian sat at his desk, pencil in hand. Her face lingered in his mind and he felt compelled to put it onto paper. The gentle contours of her jaw, the detail in her eyes, that small tilt of her rare smiles. They had spent hours yesterday talking and talking, or rather he had talked, after her admission the strength seemed to go out of her, and she fell into a silence that he had tried to fill with anything he could think of. He hadn’t been sure how to react to any of it, his heart had broken for her, but confusion and shock had entered his mind. Even fear, though he knew it was wrong. He would never hate her for what he Uncle had done; would she hate him for what his parents had done? She would certainly hate them. That was the thought that plagued him most, he knew what she was capable of, she had never hidden her prodigy abilities, her inability to sleep was emphasised with every late night encounter, there was something else too, no one can touch me without my permission she had said and he figured that to be more than bravado, though the exact nature of her powers hadn’t been discussed. The confidence with which she pulled herself up to walk along buildings edges, the muscles in her arms, were not lost on him either. This girl fought to survive. If she ever chose to be a hero – or a villain – she would be more than adept.

Something else pulled at him too, a longing for her to sit laughing with his friends, a dance at the next party he had to go to. Stupid little things that suddenly seemed so important and so far out of reach. An Artino would never be welcomed to sit amongst renegades. He sighed, looking at the portrait, it wasn’t a true portrayal, she rarely smiled at all and she had never looked at him like her portrait dd now. He pushed it away, pulling a different sketchbook towards him, this one filled not with landscapes and portraits but of intricate designs, details of powers and devices he barely understood. Nova would have loved it actually. But he ignored the thought in favour of his other problem. The tattoos. He had always been curious about testing the limits of his powers. It might not be as flashy as some Prodigies, but it was well known within the renegades for the ease in which he created weapons and devices that they used daily. Not satisfied with that he had begun creating living breathing creatures. A bluebird let loose into the sky, a butterfly painted bright purple so not as to confuse Danna. Anything he wanted he could get with a pencil or pen. So why not powers? The principle was sound; he knew how they worked, he had the means to ink them permanently onto his skin, it was the same as any other drawing, and yet, he was nervous. Should he have several different types of abilities at once? It was a feat only achieved in known history once, by his brother Max. He was stuck in quarantine for the rest of his life. Though he knew it was different, that he had the power to pick and choose as Max did not, he knew better than almost anyone how unpredictable and dangerous it could be. The pain of pressing that needle into his own skin didn’t escape him either, and if this didn’t work he’d have something stupid permanently etched upon his arm with no purpose.

 

A curved line on the page quickly became a flame reaching around the edges of the page already eager to escape, fire elementals were common, simple and favoured. Though each differed in their ability prodigies and non-prodigies alike envied the ability, the simple design wouldn’t take as long as some of the others. He hesitated on the practicalities, however, wondering how easy it would be to control, a candle flame wouldn’t be often useful yet a larger more powerful flame, which he admitted to being drawn to the allure of such instant defensive and offensive magic, could easily get out of control. Most of the largest catastrophes in history had been fire elementals losing control, dozens dead, entire buildings destroyed. He laid his pencil down chewing on his lip. His name echoed down the stairs and he jumped, quickly shutting the book and shoving it into a drawer and grabbing a jumper to conceal the temporary pen design he had sketched onto his arm earlier to see how the design would look. He had meant to wash it off but time had escaped him. He hurried up the stairs to the smell of dinner cooking, he hadn’t even realised his parents had gotten home yet. Simon greeted him with a smile, squeezing his shoulder as he went past,

 

“Dinners ready, set the table?”

 

“Sure.” He grabbed the cutlery, Hugh was stirring something that smelt strongly of tomatoes, he shot him a quick smile.

 

“You came in late last night.” He commented, Adrian glanced up at him but sensed he was curious rather than angry, his dad rarely got angry, having only done so on a couple of occasions when something particularly bad had happened in the city or Adrian had something particularly reckless, even then it had largely been worry, been home late wasn’t really going to cut it.

 

“Sorry, I was out with some friends, lost track of time.” His stomach curled with guilt even though technically he hadn’t lied, he wasn’t sure how or when he could bring up Nova, or even if she would want him to. He could have mentioned her when he first met her but it had seemed strange to bring up a girl he barely knew, if even if her appearance on the roof had seemed rather comical at the time. Then there’d been the second time and the third, and each time something had stopped him, he had a feeling that it was the blush that rose to his cheeks every time he thought about her, and it was getting worse, or it had been. He wondered if things had irreversibly changed between them. He couldn’t even begin to think of how the hell his parents would take ‘So there’s this girl I might be massively crushing on, you might be indirectly responsible for the very brutal murder of her parents, do you remember her Uncle? You killed him a while back. Can I bring her over for dinner? It's ok, she’s not _really_ an Anarchist.’ Yeah, he definitely wasn’t going to mention her just yet, at least not until he had gotten over the revelation himself.

 

“You’ve been out a lot lately.” Adrian frowned, honestly surprised they had noticed given that they were rarely in the house themselves, he was about to voice that when he saw Simon glance down at his plate grimacing, Simon didn’t need to be a mind reader when he could read Adrian’s expressions even better. Adrian bit his tongue and shrugged instead, he could do without accidentally guilt-tripping his parents, especially since it would just lead to Simon finding a new ‘family activity’ that would last all of a week before they all gave it up. Hugh sighed slightly but gave up at getting anything else out of him though that didn’t stop Adrian from noticing the shared look between him and Simon. He wondered if he would even know, or love, someone well enough to be able to express an entire conversation with a raised eyebrow. The conversation shifted to a new building development once dinner began and he was spared further interrogation.

 


End file.
